From - Thu May 27 21:14:34 1999 Path: reader2.news.rcn.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail From: "Jeff Killeen" Newsgroups: comp.org.decus,comp.os.vms,comp.sys.tandem Subject: Alan an appology from the pond scum for my part in it - (Re: Regarding recent US DECUS Chapter Board impeachment action) Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 20:57:20 -0400 Organization: IDM INC Lines: 103 Message-ID: <7ikplc$28$1@autumn.news.rcn.net> References: <374B4B77.1E7DAB7F@decus.org> <374D4AD8.8EE3B8C3@vms.cis.pitt.edu> <374D6E9D.8EA5075F@mitra.com> <1999May27.140306.1550@flying-disk.spamblock.com> Reply-To: "Jeff Killeen" X-Trace: Ez1Ws4DDaHOQfV35NLRCY+3GEJONS5czH12S8zMUYjU= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 May 1999 00:57:16 GMT X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211 Xref: reader2.news.rcn.net comp.org.decus:11088 comp.os.vms:232761 comp.sys.tandem:4847 > That is incorrect. I never received an apology for what > was done. My memory is very long on this issue. Alan there are two issues I know where you have referred to me as being "pond scum" over the years. I don't want to get into the other one for now however let me say on the IAS SIG issue myself, and anyone involved in it from the Chapter, was dead wrong. It wasn't until I was elected to the Board that I realized the fundamental mistake that was made - and it is because of that fundamental mistake the myself and others could communicate with you on this issue. In the 1984 DECUS reorganization SIGs became viewed as the engine that would supply the workers to drive the DECUS business. This reorganization came with this elaborate model of the Board setting the strategic direction of the Chapter - the Management Council developing the tactical plans to implement the strategic direction - and the SIGs being the groups that executed the tactical plan. Not a bad plan for running the DECUS business. It sounded right to me at the time. One tiny tiny problem - the whole underlying assumption is a 100 percent total crock. SIGs are a community building activity and the minute they were burdened with becoming a business instrument they began to fall apart. What happen to Alan was the new managers after the 1984 reorg , all full of ourselves, were going to show everyone how well we could run the business (I was low person on that ladder just starting). The team noted that the APL and IAS SIG served very small groups and weren't meeting their staffing obligations to the Chapter (each SIG was suppose to have a Newsletter Editor, a CommComm rep, a Seminar rep, a Symposium rep, and a SIG Chair). So the management team decreed that the overhead of supporting APL and IAS wasn't justified since APL could become a sub group in what became the Languages and Tools SIG - and IAS could fold into the RSX SIG - After all IAS - RSX what's the difference? We are meeting in New Orleans(?) and poor Alan gets dragged into this room to meet with the management team. The team communicates to Alan the brave new better world for his folks by being in the RSX SIG. Alan basically has one issue - he didn't put it this way but it is the way I read it today - his issue was I don't care about your model of what a SIG should do and that IAS is too small to deliver to that model - DECUS management we value the IAS identity above all - it is the important factor that holds this group together. Management goes IAS identity no no no that isn't an important factor related to the business model we have for SIGs. Of course there was zero chance of any communication working because Alan's value system was based on seeing the SIG's as a Society building function and the management team's value system was based upon seeing the SIG's function as business function. It took me 10+ years to understand the issue because we are trained in the business world to think in business terms. I can almost predict the cowboys that will follow this post saying why Jeff what you said above is so obvious why couldn't you see it. Their guns will be a blazing. The truth is though some of these folks that are likely to post could be shown recently talking in the same terms of business. It wasn't until DECUServe failed to produce a business plan in 1997? that I realized that things must be allowed to be structured in ways that make no business sense in the world of a user group. The obvious thing in a user group is to do things for non-business reasons - the lesson that has taken a long time to learn is that user groups must not only do things for non-business reasons - they must allow those things to happen in a non-business way. My fellow former BoD member Milt Campbell actually is the originator of this concept of you can't overload Society functions like SIGs with a whole bunch of business issues they don't care about. Alan you were right and we were wrong. You were correct that if what happened to the IAS SIG was allowed to stand that it would start the unraveling of the whole SIG structure. I have since 1997 used the IAS SIG issue as the example of why we must separate business from Society. It was the attempt to mold those together in 1984 that caused many of the DECUS problems that followed. Alan I have tried to express this to you before but the immediate pond scum reaction I think has prevented it from being heard. Also in my opinion the 1993 re-org wasn't a change for DECUS - it was the ultimate implementation of the original 1984 re-org without that messy voice of the volunteers who keep screwing up business issues with Society issues. It was NOT advertised as that - but I believe that was the agenda of key players. More importantly this has everything to do with NUG. My perception is that the entire NUG effort is walking off the same cliff that DECUS walked off in 1984. In effect seeing this as a business issue. IMO it is what is driving the too clever by half folks in corporate marketing. It is why some (not all) of my fellow Board members see the ownership of documents as belonging to the Board rather than the membership. It is in effect doing on the scale of the DECUS US Chapter what was done years ago to the IAS SIG. NUG in some forms could work - NUG in other forms becomes a group of shills for Compaq. If it is driven mainly by business logic reasons it will repeat the painful mistakes of the past. The only business reason Compaq will find that is valid for having a user group is in order to create a group of rabid evangelists for the Compaq style of computing. The only way that happens is to build a community - and the only way that community gets built is if their is a meaningful role for users that Compaq both believes in and supports. The most major mistake that is being made here is the unwillingness to forget about all these grand plans for now related to organizational models and deal with the issue of a meaningful role for users first. Answer that question with specifics and precision and the rest will logically follow without the political blood baths. The political blood baths come when people have no larger goal or vision to focus on so instead political self interests become the focus...